Nikita's Xander Berkeley Talks The Booth at the End

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We talk to the veteran actor about his new webseries and what could be next for Percy on Nikita.

By Eric Goldman

Xander Berkeley has been a mainstay in TV and films for years now, giving great performances in everything from Candyman to Safe to 24. These days, Berkeley is bringing his formidable presence to Nikita, as the uber-smart, calculating and dangerous Percy. But before Nikita returns this fall, you can see Berkeley in a compelling new webseries, The Booth at the End.

Berkeley stars as The Man, a very mysterious person (if that's even the right term…) who strangers seek out in a nondescript diner. If you have something you desperately want to happen, no matter how outrageous, The Man can make it happen… if you can perform a task he gives you. Some of the people come to The Man with very sympathetic requests, such as saving the life of a loved one. Others come to him with less kind-hearted wishes, such as simply wanting more money. But what he asks of them varies drastically, from seemingly noble tasks, such as protecting a child, to outright crimes, including bank robbery, and yes, murder.

I spoke to Berkeley about this new project, debuting Monday, July 11th on Hulu, along with his thoughts on where Nikita might go next.

IGN: Your character in The Booth at the End is so mysterious, as far as what his motives are. When you go into something like this, do you think to yourself, 'Well, I have to know where he's coming from to begin this' or do you play the dialogue as written and see where the scripts take you?

Berkeley: You know, it's funny, in the past, with other characters, when for whatever reason, when filming began they hadn't made a particular decision like what the character's reason for doing this thing was… Specifically in Air Force One, I'm playing this secret service agent for the president and I'm letting all these Russian terrorists onto the plane. And I kept asking Wolfgang Peterson, "Why am I doing this? For money, or am I deep mole with the communist party since I was in high school so I could become a secret service agent?" And he goes [in German accent], "I don't know! We'll decide later!" And the idea that sometimes you play blank… it's known that you can do that and get away with it and have it even be effective. But in this particular case C.K., the writer, Christopher Kubasik, gave me some things at the very beginning, hen we were first talking about it over the phone that were so intriguing. It gave me something to play and anchor, even in the areas where there was such ambiguity involved.

Xander Berkeley in The Booth at the End

He was saying that it's almost like this man isn't quite human. Maybe he's come from another dimension – a fallen angel of sorts – who has made off with a book that he really shouldn't have made off with that has within it the power to make things happen here on Earth. And maybe he knows he shouldn't interfere with the course of human destiny, so he has to play it very safe. But his curiosity is such that he can't help but do some experiments or have this booth provide him with an opportunity to get a compass on the nature of human morality, if you just can understand what it's all about.

IGN: A character early on flat out asks if you're the devil. But the intriguing thing is that some of the tasks he gives people seem to be very kind-hearted ones, which doesn't match with someone who simply wants evil to occur and nothing else. For you, does it all factor into his curiosity? He doesn't care if what he's asking is "good" or "evil," he just wants to see how it plays out?

Berkeley: I think even more than how they're going to play out he's fascinated to understand the intricate interworkings. Like somebody would take a watch apart. Or worse, maybe it's more akin to when an adolescent in science class is taught to dissect a frog and then takes it upon himself to do so on another occasion, unsupervised. Not because it wants to hurt a frog or something, but because it's just so fascinated with the interworkings. And that same kind of cold detachment, without real cruelty, comes into play if it's something from another dimension. The way an adolescent boy is to a spider, this character is to a human being. It's not like he's pulling the wings off these people, but he just wants to understand why they do what they do. "Okay, this is what you want and this is what you have to do to get it. Will you do that?" That is dead fascinating and he has no dog in this race.

IGN: I imagine is must have been very interesting for you as an actor to be this constant presence who has all of these other actors coming in to bounce off of, who you have very different energies with.

Berkeley: It was a different actor each day. There were five to seven scenes for each actor, interspersed throughout the course of the whole piece. And we would do them in chronological sequence for each actor, but then obviously we'd be jumping in and out of different chronologies with each successive day. It was really fun. It kept feeling like a cross between radio drama and theater and early TV and independent filmmaking. It just had such a pioneering spirit about it. But there was something so neat about that aspect that you're talking about. "Okay, today it's this person," and you zero in on that person and because the character is so fascinated by people, it was such a great, satisfying experience to just listen and observe. There's something really focused about "This is the person you get to zero in on today." It was just something that was innate to the project that made it deeply satisfying as an actor.

IGN: Without giving away the details, can you say whether we get any big revelations about what is happening by the end? And is the door open for more episodes?

Berkeley: Definitely it's left itself open for more episodes. And the way C.K. is angling it, the stakes will get higher, for me in particular. Because they're on to me, basically. And then there's also the fact that it becomes revealed more that I am just maybe morbidly fascinated with, "Really? Really? You'll do that to get that? Why? Why?" So he's not seen as so much Machiavellian and manipulating people, but more just this impartial observer who's becoming more and more freaked out by what he's observing.

Continue to Page 2 to see what Berkeley had to say about Percy's potential next step on Nikita.